Writing a book is a long, tedious process meant for grown-ups but Mumbai lad Maitreya Wagh is already an author, at age 14. His debut fiction novel titled Investigations Redefined: The Family Fork (Power Publishers, Rs.299) a crime and suspense thriller — released at Crossword book store, Grant Road, Mumbai on January 28 — is […]
Belatedly as usual, India’s lackadaisical academics and the intelligentsia are beginning to weigh the socio-economic costs of the gender crimes epidemic allowed to spread almost unchecked across the subcontinent. Women are being forced out of academia, corporates and industry resulting in huge economic loss to the nation. Urmila Rao & Summiya Yasmeen report
The vicious gangrape of […]
The Union Budget presented to Parliament lacks clear thrust and direction. It’s replete with obfuscations and populist giveaways and glosses over inadequate funding for infrastructure and India’s abundant human capital. It’s unlikely to deliver growth, inclusivity or sustainable development. Dilip Thakore reports
Preceded with great expectations and hype with television news anchors edgy with excitement, the Union […]
Justice Verma Committee Report
Criminal Amendment Bill, 2013
Age of consent
Lower age of consent for consensual sex to 16 years
Retains age of consent at 18 years
Gang rape
20 years imprisonment and life imprisonment for rape and murder. Refrained from recommending death penalty
20 years imprisonment
and death penalty for repeat offenders
Sexual assault/ rape
Seven years to life imprisonment and compensation […]
Tanima Majumder, second year BA student at Lady Brabourne College, Calcutta University.
“I feel unsafe while commuting to college even during the day. It’s common to be subjected to lewd comments and groping on Kolkata’s roads and in buses. Night commuting is very unsafe. I try to finish all my assignments by working intensively during the […]
“To do what was required, the FM slashed expenditure allocations of the past even if it meant reduced capital expenditures — and used the extra resources to ramp up subsidies and schemes favoured by the high command.”
Laveesh Bhandari, founder-director of Indicus Analytics
“Finance minister P. Chidambaram’s budget for 2013-14 will be remembered not only for its […]
In the Union Budget 2013-14 presented to Parliament and the nation on February 28, Union finance minister P. Chidambaram provided Rs.79,451 crore (“misreported” in the printed budget speech as Rs.65,867 crore), a 19 percent increase over the previous year as the Central government’s contribution to primary, secondary and higher education. Though 19 percent higher than […]
Although the Criminal Law (Amendment) Bill, 2013 (aka the anti-rape Bill) based on the recommendations of the Justice Verma Committee, became law on March 22 after getting the President’s assent, in the streets of India’s chaotic cities and isolated hamlets of rural India where the rule of law is at best nominal, nothing seems to […]
In mid-March, several dailies in Bangalore headlined the poignant story of little Lakshmi Naikode (9), who fled her home and Kannada-medium government primary school last November to realise her dream of studying in an English-medium ‘convent’ school. Three days after she had unsuccessfully knocked on the doors of several private schools for admission, Lakhsmi was […]
Thanks for your informative cover story ‘India’s top think tanks’ (EW March). It was an eye-opener that India hosts 292 think tanks — the third largest number after the US and China, and that six of them have been rated in U Penn’s Global Go-To Think Tank league table. The encouraging take-away from your story […]
The three-year deadline for enforcement of the Right to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009 (notified on April 1, 2010) on two key parameters — establishment of neighbourhood schools and provision of basic school infrastructure including one-classroom-one-teacher, playground, toilets, barrier-free access, establishment of school management committees etc — ended on March 31. Now an […]
In the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business Report 2013, India is ranked 132nd in the 185-nation index. Despite this, while presenting the Union Budget 2013-14, the finance minister emphasised that the prerequisite of “restarting India’s growth engine is to attract more investment, both from domestic investors and foreign investors’’. “Doing business in India must […]
To the growing dismay of its electorate, West Bengal’s mercurial chief minister Mamata Banerjee, whose Trinamool Congress Party (TMC) swept the state assembly elections in May 2011 ending 34 years of continuous rule of the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPM)-led Left Front government in the state, is not cut from a radically different cloth from […]
Enfeebled by poorly designed syllabuses and worse curriculums, and actively discouraged by institutional managements from participating in political activity or even debating larger political issues, the students union movement in India is in a coma, if not dead.
Therefore Tamil Nadu’s largest students’ protest after the anti-Hindi agitation of 1965 over alleged genocide and war crimes […]
Even as the three-year deadline for implementation of the Right to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009 ended on March 31, the historic but obviously hastily drafted legislation is still floundering in a sea of troubles.
Over 90 percent of the country’s 1.2 million government schools are yet to meet the infrastructure norms prescribed in […]
“She was just a shop-window mannequin, with no personality of her own, entirely defined by what she wore.”
Hillary Mantel, British author, describing Duchess of Windsor Kate Middleton, and sparking an impassioned debate about the royals (Time, March 4)
“The Africa star is shining brightly, and the destiny of Africa is now in our hands.”
Uhuru […]
Himachal Pradesh
Sky high examination centres
The Himachal Pradesh Board of School Education has established an examination centre in the Spiti Valley, Kibber, at a height of 14,200 ft. above sea level. The centre will facilitate one class X and eight class XII students to write examinations scheduled to commence on March 4, but postponed to March […]
King’s College, London, launched its International Summer Schools Programme (ISSP) 2013, in Mumbai on April 1. The event, held at the city’s Jai Hind College, was attended by King’s College faculty and principals of the city’s leading undergraduate colleges.
Under ISSP, King’s offers a range of popular short courses in India for students who aspire to […]
Promoted by a trio of US-returned engineers in 2008, Rockwell International School, Hyderabad which celebrated its third anniversary last December, is earning plaudits from the city’s parent and academic communities
Sited in Hyderabad’s tony suburb of Jubilee Hills, a stone’s throw from HITEC (Hyderabad Information Technology & Engineering Consultancy) City,
Ranked # 1 in the QS World University Rankings 2012-13, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA is acknowledged as the world’s premier higher ed institution for Science, Engineering and Technology Education and Research
Founded in 1861 by William Barton Rogers, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is internationally acknowledged as the world’s premier advanced […]
A class XII student of Noida-based Pathways World School, Evan Luthra (18) is a ‘computer scientist’ in his own right and make. Over the past four years, he has developed over 30 apps including StudySocia, Awenest, El Design, Geek Platter, Digital Strategist, etc, for mobile phones and other companies such as Google India, iPhone, Blackberry, […]
Against the backdrop of greater business interaction, cultural ties and growing tourism, careers in the Italian language have become attractive to Indian youth
Although recently Indo-Italian diplomatic relations have soured over the marines issue, the two ancient civilizations have a history of trade relations going back 2,000 years. Today, the bilateral trade between the two countries […]
I’m a class XII commerce student interested in a career in journalism. Will a BMM (bachelor of mass media) degree help me get started?
Neela D’Souza, Mumbai
A BMM degree is a good stepping stone for a career in journalism. Two specialisations offered in the BMM programme are advertising and journalism. Career prospects are bright in the […]
A report in the Canberra Times late last year (December 5) disclosed that India has overtaken China and Britain to become the largest supplier nation to Australia’s skilled migrants programme, accounting for 15.7 percent of the total. According to Kate Lundy, federal minister for multicultural affairs and sport, India contributed 29,018 skilled migrants to Oz in the […]
An alumnus of NIT, Surathkal (Karnataka), Bangalore-based Krishna Kumar is the chief executive of Simplilearn.com, an education startup which he has swiftly transformed into one of the fastest growing online training and certification companies in Asia (revenue: Rs.5.5 crore in 2012). After quitting a highly paid job with Infosys Technologies in 2000, Kumar promoted a software development […]
Dr K. Satya Prasad is president of the Jana Vignana Vedika (JVV), a non-profit, cadre-based people’s science organisation headquartered in Hyderabad. A mycology and plant pathology expert, he is also professor of botany at Osmania University with over two decades of teaching experience. JVV, which has centres in all 23 districts of Andhra Pradesh, is affiliated […]
Aysha Iqbal Viswamohan, associate professor of contemporary literature, drama, film studies and popular culture in the department of humanities and social sciences at the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras (IIT-M), is a passionate proponent of the English language, literature and classics. A former visiting scholar at Simon Fraser University, Vancouver (Canada), she has authored […]
Dr Manjunath Sadashiva is co-founder and director of the Children’s Movement for Civic Awareness (CMCA, estb. 2009), a Bangalore-based NGO which provides civic education programmes to schools and communities to sensitise and empower children and youth to develop into proactive citizens and nation builders.
Newspeg. As part of a school profiling exercise between January-March this year, 25 […]
An education postgrad and PhD of Calcutta University, Dr Bijli Mallik is director of the Institute of Psychological and Educational Research (IPER), a Kolkata-based voluntary organisation established for the promotion of education by Dr Arun Ghosh in 1971. A respected educationist and author, Ghosh founded IPER with the intention of combining the sciences of education […]
Barack Obama likes to call education “the currency for the information age”. His presidency has brought a big shift in America’s priorities, devoting more effort and resources — and an extra $2 billion (Rs.10,800 crore) — to children who have not yet started formal schooling.
That is part of an international trend. South Korea plans to […]
Here is a test. suppose you had $100 in a savings account that paid an interest rate of 2 percent a year. If you leave the money in the account, how much would you have accumulated after five years: more than $102, exactly $102, or less than $102? And would an investor who received 1 percent […]
Entering the European University Institute (EUI) has echoes of stepping back in time to one of the early monastic seats of higher education. Its hub, housed in a Medici-era church and monastery, sits high in the hills above Florence in San Domenico di Fiesole. Today the ancient cloisters are paced by serious-minded young scholars deep […]
Plans by Conservative Party ministers to limit international students’ use of the National Health Service (NHS) could further deter overseas applicants. The move coincides with an analysis published in early March, which concludes that overseas students are less of a drain on health and other public resources than the average citizen.
Following the Conservative party’s third-place […]
A conference in Tunisia has explored new opportunities and threats for universities in countries transformed by the recent Arab Spring. The event was organised by the Scholars at Risk Network and the Center for Dialogues, both based in New York University, and convened on February 21-22 at the University of Manouba’s faculty of letters, arts […]
When the Australian government declined in January to implement recommended increases in teaching funding, or permit the franchising of university degrees, some observers perceived a growing nervousness about the cost of the country’s uncapped higher education system.
Some academics believe the cost of the loans system could prompt a future government — particularly one from the […]
“Education is a process of living, not a preparation for the future” — John Dewey, American educationist (1859-1952)
Every human being seeks meaning in life. We all yearn for a sense of significance, and importance — some higher purpose in our lives. Students are no exception: they also crave a higher purpose which they hope to realise through education. […]
Return of a King — The Battle for Afghanistan 1839-1842 by William Dalrymple; Bloomsbury; Price: Rs.799; 602 pp
The mountain nation of Afghanistan (pop. 30 million) — less a nation than a conglomeration of mutually antagonistic tribes which unite only when invaded by foreign armies — has proved to be a graveyard of mighty powers. Primitive and […]
Bijoy K Sahoo, Chairman, SAI International School, Bhubaneswar
Where would you place education on your national list of priorities?
Topmost. I honestly believe national development worldwide is directly related to education.
How best to upgrade government schools?
By awarding grants on the basis of performance measured by standardised national/state tests at several levels and […]
Arguably no denouement in recent times has given as much satisfaction to the country’s smug and risk-averse Indian middle class as the comeuppance of Subrata Roy, the self-styled managing worker of the reportedly one-million strong Sahara Pariwar (family) which is actually a clutch of para banking companies, with claimed 30 million depositors spread across the […]
10 oldest cities in the world Every city in the world has a story to unfold. The ancient cities have all the more tales engulfed with ... 
Trivandrum International School In a state which has earned a global reputation for development through education, Trivandrum International School (TIS) has been promoted ... 
Dr. Mahesh Prasad – Establish Indian Education Service A science, education and psychology alum of Delhi University and former principal of Noida’s Army Public School, Dr. Mahesh Prasad ... 
IIT Kharagpur to set up institute in Malaysia IIT Kharagpur wants to set up an engineering institute in Malaysia as part of a plan to go global, said ... 
Towards real quality education
JS Rajput is former director of NCERT and National Council for Teacher Education
Under s. 19 of the historic right to free and Compulsory Education (aka RTE) Act, 2009, all schools imparting elementary (classes I-VIII) education countrywide were obliged to fulfill certain infrastructure and other norms as specified in a special Schedule of the Act, within […]